Italian news publishers are calling for an investigation into Google’s AI Overviews, arguing that the search engine’s AI-generated summaries feature is a “traffic killer” that threatens their survival.
FIEG, the Italian federation of newspaper publishers, said it has submitted a formal complaint to Agcom, Italy’s communications watchdog.
Similar complaints have been filed in other EU countries. Coordinated by the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association, the aim is to push the European Commission to open an investigation against Google under the EU Digital Services Act.
The threat posed by AI Overviews, which gives users information without them having to click through to the original source by summarising searches with a block of text at the top of the results page, is among the main concerns of European news outlets.
FIEG said it was also worried about the more recent AI Mode, which takes information from multiple sources and presents them as a chatbot.
The federation argues that the Google services “violate fundamental provisions of the digital services act, with detrimental effects on Italian users, consumers and businesses”.
“Google is becoming a traffic killer,” FIEG said in a statement, adding that the products not only directly compete with content produced by publishing firms, but also “reduces their visibility and discoverability, and thus their advertising revenues”.
“This has serious consequences for the economic sustainability and diversity of the media, with all the risks associated with a lack of transparency and the proliferation of disinformation in democratic debate,” the statement said.
A study published in July by the UK-based Authoritas analytics company claimed AI Overviews, launched by Google last year, caused up to 80% fewer clickthroughs. The research, which was submitted as part of a legal complaint to the UK’s competition watchdog about the impact of Google AI Overviews, also found that links to YouTube – owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet – were more prominent compared with the normal search result system.
A second study by the Pew Research Center, a US thinktank, also showed a big hit to referral traffic from Google AI Overviews, with users only clicking a link under an AI summary once every 100 times.
Google claimed the studies were inaccurate and based on flawed methodology.
Google AI Overviews arrived in Italy in March. In September, the country became the first in the EU to approve a comprehensive law regulating the use of artificial intelligence, including limiting child access and imposing prison terms on those who use the technology to cause harm, such as generating deepfakes.
Giorgia Meloni’s government described the legislation, which aligns with the EU’s landmark AI Act, as a decisive move in influencing how AI is used across Italy.
